


There is no Cruelty quite like Irony

by knightinpinkunderwear



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Autopsies, Big Bang Challenge, Blood, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Corpses, Dead People, Don't copy to another site, Episode: s01e20 Under the Knife, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Flowers, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, Gotham Big Bang, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Murder, New Friendship, No Romance, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Season/Series 01, Temporary Character Death, Undead, magic??? i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 00:44:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinpinkunderwear/pseuds/knightinpinkunderwear
Summary: When Edward Nygma went to confront Officer Dougherty about his abuse to Ms. Kringle the second time hed thought hed come prepared to defend himself.Usually, the sight of a corpse or corpses did not make him uneasy. But this, this was a bit of a special case.For the Gotham Big Bang Challenge





	There is no Cruelty quite like Irony

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags, please. I don't want you to be coming into reading this story without knowing what you're getting yourself into.

Edward Nygma had seen many corpses throughout the course of his life. Much more than the average person who was not employed in a death related business (approximately 15.6), or even the average Gothamite (about 27.3). Maybe he’d seen a few too many when he was a bit too young…But still. 

This... _familiarity _with corpses was unusual for a number of reasons. First: he had yet to turn 27. Second: he was not a serial murderer or an accomplice of some sort. Third: he was not closely related to any serial murderers. And fourth: his work was not of the illegal sort. But still, an overwhelming majority of his corpse experience was from work. 

His job was to analyze crime scenes and evidence, after all, a forensic technician and scientist for the most crime-infested city in the world; Gotham. 

Gotham had a lot of robberies, drug dealing, money laundering, and of course: murder. It wasn't all that uncommon for there to be multiple triple homicides in a week. It kept Edward busy, new corpses and crime scenes to examine. More evidence laid out in puzzles for him to help unravel. 

Overall, Ed had seen enough corpses through his line of work and...personal experience that he liked to think that he was quite the opposite of squeamish. In fact, outside of the context of his youth, most corpses had little to no negative effect on his emotional or mental being. He had what one might call a healthy detachment from corpses. Much in the way that an ER nurse or 9-1-1 call operator had to keep a level of detachment from the people they are trying to save. While he perfectly understood that a corpse was a body with the person no longer in control of it. Their thoughts, feelings, and experiences lost, he could easily accept that there was nothing he could do about it. And thus, the best he could do for the person is to help find their killer, so that the killer may be brought to justice. 

This corpse however...it was much more uncomfortable than surveying a corpse at work. It was more uncomfortable than those he’d seen in his youth. 

It was a body. Blood, bruises. All of which he’d seen before. It wasn’t even that graphic in comparison to his work experience and personal history. 

The skull was intact. Not caved in.

No visible splatter or leakage of brain matter.

No organs spilling out. 

It wasn't rotted to the point it might as well have been a Skeleton. 

It wasn't burnt or charred. 

Nothing had started eating at it yet. 

It hadn't even started decomposing. 

It was fresh. Still warm. Still cooling off. 

Almost clean. Minus the obvious cause of death. 

A slit throat, relatively neat. 

Maybe the fact that it was _his _body made a significant difference in how it affected him. (Yes, yes it did). 

Yes, _his _body.

It was his body.

His body was a corpse.

He was dead.

It was unnerving. If he could hyperventilate, Edward had no doubt that he would be doing so. It was horrifying. And utterly bizarre, being able to see his own body from different angles as it stayed limp. Almost like a video game with unrealistically real graphics. But it wasn’t a video game. It _was _real. 

His body lying limp. 

His body.

His body, without him in it. 

His body without him.

Without life.

_He _was without life.

He was dead.

Just a body without life.

Just a body.

Just a corpse.

Edward wasn’t sure if he could accept it. 

How could he let this happen?

He was not a reckless person. 

But he did want to help.

This had all started with Kristen Kringle and more notably, her abusive new boyfriend. 

Officer Thomas J. Dougherty.

He had just wanted to help. 

It was _interesting _how the rate of domestic abuse in police families was four times the national average. 

It was _interesting _how the instances of reports and prosecution of those police-employed domestic abusers were significantly lower than the average. 

Officer Dougherty had _hurt _Ms. Kringle. He’d seen the bruises. It _wasn’t _okay, no matter what she said. It _wasn’t _okay. He _couldn’t _let Dougherty get away with hurting her. 

She didn’t deserve that.

She deserved better.

(Edward just wanted to help her.)

And Dougherty deserved nothing. 

Not her forgiveness.

Not her affections. 

Not even the pleasure of her company.

She loved him and Dougherty hurt her in return. He shouldn’t do that. Dougherty laughed at him when he told him such. Said that _women needed a firm hand. _The officer sounded a lot like a Mr. Kyle Nasthon from long ago. Ed didn’t like it, the way Dougherty treated her, the way he talked _about _her, so he’d made a plan to confront him again. Because it _wasn’t right _for him to talk about another person like they were an object... like they were a piece of meat. Dougherty was supposed to care about and for Kristen, how _could he _do or say things like that? How could he treat her like an object, like a piece of meat for his consumption? Like she was a belonging of his?

So, with the desire to help, Edward had crafted a plan. To confront Dougherty again and convince the man to change his actions or leave. 

The confrontation had not gone as planned, not even a little bit. Edward had hoped to scare the other man into leaving Gotham or leaving Ms. Kringle alone at the very least. But Dougherty was a lot stronger than him, and sadly, the officer knew it. 

(He just wanted to help.)

Officer Dougherty was certainly less tipsy than he first appeared. Edward had first been somewhat comforted by the fact that the man didn’t look the most stable on his feet. 

It was in the first punch that Ed knew he’d made a mistake. That he should not be confronting Dougherty again. That he should have done this in daylight, with other people around. But Edward Nygma hadn’t realized that until too late. He hadn’t thought the officer was actually a killer. He’d thought the man just threw around threats with no desire to hold up to them, he’d thought it was for show. But he was quite wrong. 

And for that...he was beaten. 

And for that...he was killed; murdered, slaughtered, slain.

Dead. 

Dougherty stole the pocket knife from his grip, Ed’s pocket knife. Betrayal via his intended self-defense. Betrayal via the only thing besides his quilt that kept him feeling safe at night. 

Dougherty used it to cut through the flesh of his throat. It slid through so easily, a quick stroke. Blood flew and his eyes teared up.

How could it cut so easily? 

It wasn't fair. 

(He’d just wanted to help.)

He wasn't a hunk of butter. Or a piece of meat. 

But still. . . 

His throat was slit, the cut shallow enough to prolong his death but deep enough to sever his vocal cords. That was what Ed got for trying to spare Kristen from her abuser. That was what he got for doing what he wished someone had done for him. That was what he got for _trying to help._

He was still alive when Dougherty shoved him into the backseat of his own beloved car, his _RDL LVR._

His breaths were shaky and shallow, the thick burning liquid filling one lung from a puncture and the blood pouring into his throat from another. He couldn’t even croak in resistance. The tears stayed in his eyes, he couldn’t move, there wasn’t enough air. It took all his energy just _to try _to gasp down air through the blood. He was drowning. Drowning in his own blood. Bleeding out and in. 

It wasn't fair. 

(He just wanted to help.)

It was so much worse than all of his father’s beatings and his mother’s words and abandonment. It was worse than starving because he was afraid he hadn’t _earned _the right to sustenance. It was worse than _knowing _that no one loved him. It was worse than knowing that he _couldn’t _be loved. It was like how it felt when he’d first understood that _his parents _couldn’t even love him. He felt as scared and as terribly sad as he had been back then. 

Like a child. 

Officer Dougherty hijacked his car, the drive violent as the seconds lasted eternities. Dougherty dumped his body in a park a few blocks away from Ms.Kringle’s home. He did it all like this was nothing but a chore. He didn’t care that Ed was dying. He didn’t care if Ed was a human being. He didn’t seem to know. To him Ed was an object, even less than that, he was the garbage being taken out and gotten rid of. It didn’t matter what happened to weird _riddle-man _Ed. 

Ed’s car was abandoned there also. Dougherty groped him up and down as he choked down his own blood and tears. Dougherty took the money from his wallet. The monster met his gaze and smirked, manhandling him into place. 

Before leaving, the murderer-to-be kicked him a few more times. Everything was _pain _and _drowning _and _blood._ The last kick sent Ed down the shallow hill. 

Edward rolled into a flower bed. In the midst of all the beautiful soft flowers with beautifully soft scents and beautiful lively colors, he opened his eyes and was taken by death. 

Then he was outside of his body, standing by one of his shoulders and looking down at his corpse and what had been done to it. Outside of himself, as an apparition, he had all the same visual injuries, even the jagged cut through his throat. Despite not being in his body, connected to his own nervous system, he could still feel _all _of the pain. 

Death was not that different than life, it seemed. With the exception that he was even more unseen and unheard than he’d been in life. 

No one listened.

No one noticed him.

No attention.

No affection. 

If he tried to speak, tiny flower petals fell from his bruised lips, cranberry red; they melted into blood in his hands, dripping through his shaking, translucent fingers. His throat remained slit, vocal cords cut. 

Crying felt the same, the way it burned his eyes and added to the pain of his throat. He spent the night running through the dark streets of Gotham screaming and sobbing, trying to get someone’s --anyone’s-- attention. The cranberry petals flew in a flurry past his lips, melting mid-air, painting the ground below him in a trail of blood. 

But no one heard. 

He waved frantically in windows, tried flagging down a bus, a car, a taxi. 

But no one saw. 

He kicked over a trash can, one of those strange old metal cylinders you’d see on cartoons and old movies. The noise was loud and clanging. Like a large tinny bell. 

He cried. 

But no one came. Not to help, or even investigate the commotion. 

After hours he gave up and circled back to his body. It was so unnerving to see, it was so pale. It was ... _him._ But he wasn’t ready to die, to be dead. No, he didn’t want to end this way. He’d escaped the Nashtons only to die by the hands of _someone else’s abuser? _That wasn’t right. That wasn’t fair. He just wanted to help! To try to give the thing he’d never been granted; a helping hand, some support. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. _No. _He wouldn’t let it be. He’d lived through all of mother and father’s attempts on his life, he wasn’t ready to leave the living now. 

Fueled with vindictive anger and a sense of gross unfairness, he lunged towards the corpse, willing himself to _live._

Edward bolted upright. 

He coughed, feeling some air and semi-solid blood in his aching lungs,

He coughed, expelling the clotted blood from his throat and finally choked down some air, feeling little of it enter his windpipe through the gash in his throat. It made a whistling wheezy sound. 

It felt amazing to breathe again, invigorating. 

His limbs were heavy and his bones were weighed down by a piercing cold. 

But he could feel them; his legs, his fingers, his arms, his toes!

Shakily, he climbed to his knees and then his feet, his ribs were still broken, and one lung was still half full of coagulated blood. 

Breath wheezed through his purple lips and the horrid purple and blue gash on his neck. His severed vocal cords trembled but made no noise. 

But he was breathing! Standing!

Pain. 

The pain didn't really hurt, it was more of a natural state, like an ache he had long since grown used to. 

Similar to the familiar ache of bruises from his childhood beatings. 

But they reminded him back then that he’d survived. That he could survive. 

Now would be no different. 

He could go on. He was not finished. 

Death could not take him yet. 

And life had not seen the last of him. 

What once was Edward Nygma stumbled up the shallow hill he’d been kicked down only hours before. He shuffled on heavy feet through the streets, back to the place he was assaulted. Across the street from Ms. Kringle’s home. 

The night was ending.

A new day beginning. 

Out in the street, his pocket knife gleamed. 

It was still covered in his blood, now dried and flaky. 

Dougherty had been sloppy. Edward huffed, smirking and bent to pick it up. The chill of the metal handle mirrored the chill that still resided deep in his bones.

The first whispy breaths of dawn were trickling across dark asphalt, the air heavy with morning fog. Edward felt clear, no trace of similar fog in his metaphoric heart or in his mind. 

Ms. Kringle’s yellow porchlight was like a beacon of life and warmth. 

Her front door opened. Officer Dougherty came through it, eyes glancing over the street and almost missing him. 

Almost. 

Even though Officer Dougherty had not really _seen _him in that glance, the man’s brain had screamed at him, telling him something was _wrong _and his eyes trailed back to where Edward stood in all his grotesque horror. 

Edward could feel the blood drain from Dougherty's face in much a similar way as the blood had drained into his throat and lungs when he was killed. Like when Dougherty had killed him, but now the tables were turned. Edward liked this change. He wasn’t the one frightened and cowering away from an angered foe. No, he wasn’t a scared little boy cowering away from his parents’ or bully’s beatings. He wasn’t helpless, he wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. 

Dougherty treated Kristen like a piece of meat, and treated him like less. 

Dougherty hurt Kristen. He'd seen the bruises.

Dougherty hurt him. Punched and kicked him.

Dougherty slit his throat. 

And Dougherty _would not _live to wrong another. 

There was something poetic of slaying one’s own murderer with the very same pocket knife. 

It was beautiful. 

Dougherty was still, seemingly paralyzed, until the blade was buried in his stomach. 

He gasped as the knife was pulled out and thrust back into his body. Again and again and again the knife plunged up into his torso. 

Dougherty was granted several mercies in his death. None of his ribs were fractured, his throat was uncut. Officer Thomas Dougherty died gasping the name of one of his victims. Edward’s only regret was the state of his own vocal cords, he couldn’t get in the last word. 

But there would be no more words for Edward Nygma, Dougherty had made sure of that. And for that Ed was still bitter, cold tears slipping down his cold face, his throat ever agonizing. 

Dougherty’s corpse was disposed of between two dumpsters. He was with the trash, where monsters like him really belonged. Where they could rot and finally resemble their own cruel character. Where they could get what they deserved. 

He didn’t come back as Edward had. There was no disembodied apparition to be found of the late officer, abuser, and murderer. He was simply gone. 

Edward retraced his steps, found his car easily, his beloved _RDL LVR _. He snuck across the city and into his building and apartment with suspicious ease. He thought that with a cut throat and an appearance doused in blood someone would have taken notice of him, the wrongness of him, and maybe tried to intervene.

But no one did. 

No one even saw him. 

He stripped the blood-soaked clothes from his cold corpse. His skin was not as translucent blue as before. Still not a healthy living blush, far too pale, but close enough to pass. As he scrubbed the blood from his hands they warmed under the water. When he finished his body was lukewarm instead of the weighted chill that had been settled deep in his bones. 

In the mirror it was him. Just him. His mind was clear, no voices or echoing thoughts. 

Pale, wide-eyed, un-dead, but still himself, still Edward Nygma. The gnarled gash remained on his throat, his vocal cords remained severed, and the only sounds he could make were pathetic wheezes. 

He could still whistle, (though that was hardly useful). 

His heart had started beating again some time after the death of Officer Dougherty. It was slow but steady, about half the pace it should have been at. His throat was starting to bleed out a little, blood re-liquifying with gained body heat and heartbeat. He spent a few minutes coughing up the blood that had settled into his right lung. It was tiring but not draining. He wasn’t drowning anymore. 

Resigned, Edward found his first aid kit and started cleaning. 

However freakish it had been to see his own corpse while being outside of it, that was nothing compared to accidentally getting a q-tip stuck in his slit throat, half in his throat, half sticking out. It felt… very unnatural and very uncomfortable. 

The rest of the cleaning process was much less uncomfortable. 

In twenty-one minutes and maybe sixteen seconds he’d sewn shut where his throat had been sliced and covered his neck in a bandage. It was just a large cut; relatively clean, he’d had much messier many times before. He knew how to care for similar injuries. It was only the location that was different, the depth. But otherwise, it was just a cut. 

Edward straightened and let his gaze meet his reflection again. It was still just him.

He looked alive now, just a bit pale, not too suspicious. But the bandage… it would look too conspicuous, especially if it never healed. Edward wasn’t sure it _would _heal. 

_What if it didn't? _

Just because he had a pulse and meager body heat didn’t mean he was wholly alive, just that he wasn’t wholly dead. 

It was like a riddle; _Not alive and not dead, what am I?_

Despite dying the night before Edward decided to go to work. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. He would go to work. As if nothing had happened. Like every other day. It was routine. 

It wasn’t like he could call in sick anyway, with the state of his vocal cords. 

Besides, Edward genuinely liked his work, maybe not his co-workers, but certainly his work. Death had not changed that. 

Ed selected the highest collared button-down he owned to go underneath his sweater vest and grey work blazer. A small scarf secured about his neck for extra security and peace of mind. 

Buttoning the cuffs of the sleeves, clipping his ID badge onto the left lapel, and adjusting the belt around his hips were all so mundanely comforting. Like his routine had not been altered. 

He felt like himself. Like he really was just given a second chance, a chance to keep living. Once dressed he left for work, disposing of his ruined clothes on the way to the car. He felt better than he had in a long while. It was almost ironic. 

He checked in at the front desk, taking a pen and post-it and hurriedly writing _‘laryngitis’ _when the clerk got bothered by his not speaking. The man looked at him blankly. Clearly, the living idiot thought he’d made up the term. Edward huffed a breath out, glad that with the bandage in place some air wasn’t escaping through the hole in his neck, quickly scribbling a _‘can’t speak’ _to join his perfectly adequate explanation. 

“Why didn’t you just say so?” the clerk asked rhetorically, a quick belt of laughter following in mockery. Edward sighed, turned and made his way to his office, unlocking the door on autopilot. The man was cruel, an idiot, but ultimately harmless, he’d dealt with worse. _Hell, he’d died. _One stupid remark was not worth his time or thoughts. In fact, a remark like that only proved that everything was happening as if the night before had not. This was good. He was just going to keep living, he was going to have a happy life, he was going to prove them wrong. He was going to prove them all wrong. He smiled. 

Ed found that the chill of the morgue bothered him significantly less now. Dr. Thompkins was pleasant and kind as usual, expressing her sympathies to his loss of speech. She also recommended that he take a day off because he looked a little pale. He had the feeling a day off would not help with his pallor. But she meant well. 

Ms. Kringle was her usual wonderful self, until about halfway through the day when she realized her boyfriend was suspiciously absent. Then she was a little confused and irritated. She probably thought Dougherty was just blowing off his responsibilities, which seemed like something he might actually do... if he were still alive, or whatever state of being Ed was. 

Ed returned Ms. Kringle’s files to their correct places (according to her inefficient system, she was attached to it for some reason and he would not meddle with it again, she had only just forgiven him for that). He didn’t leave any cards with riddles or poems, that would seem suspicious, her boyfriend hasn’t been dead long enough for a Missing Persons report yet, much less long enough for Ms. Kringle to move on. 

Ed was not good with most social norms but he did understand it took a minimum of a week for a person to get over a lover left or lost. 

And... Ed wasn’t sure if he was interested in courting her anymore. It was conflicting. 

If his throat never healed...surely a significant other would notice that. Until he knew if the gash in his throat would ever heel, non-platonic relationships were off the table. 

Besides, after what he went through with Dougherty the night before, he wasn’t sure he was in a good state of mind to even be thinking about relationships. 

The best he could hope for and work towards now was friendship. He was sure that friendship was not a bad foundation to build love on if he so decided in the future. And friendship could hopefully also act as a bandage to heal the hurt of her boyfriend disappearing, as well as their not-so-great interactions.

Regardless, it would be nice to have a friend. A real friend. He’d never really had one of those before. And he’d almost, well… he _had _died last night. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make friends. 

The day was spent mostly in his lab and the morgue, no new, fresh bodies. 

Other than Dougherty’s. 

It was found at around 7 pm. 

Ed was called to the scene along with Detectives Gordon and Bullock.

Of course, he arrived first, with the general GCPD orderlies putting up the yellow tape and keeping the woman who’d found the body nearby with a shock blanket. 

Edward got to skip an assessment and moral argument with himself, this time he felt no remorse whatsoever for the corpse he was assigned to. Because this time he _knew _the bastard had definitely got what he deserved. 

Thomas Dougherty deserved to have his life and potential ripped from him. He was a monster and monsters didn’t change. They kept hurting people. They always would. 

Edward knew all about monsters. 

He had been their prey for far too long. 

He knew how they hunted. How they lived. What they wanted. 

And he knew, above all, what they deserved. 

They deserved to be _hurt _and suffer and die. 

They deserved all the pain they inflicted on the people they were supposed to care for and nurture. 

They deserved to rot. 

To be eaten by maggots, worms, and larvae. To become feasts for bacteria and fungi. 

To decompose and liquify. 

And never be able to hurt another person again. 

The only misfortune was that his rotting would be slowed as his death investigated. 

Ed wished he had thought to put Dougherty into the dumpster. But then again Edward was not sure he had the upper-body strength required for that feat. 

Dying most likely wouldn’t have altered his muscle capabilities that much. 

Placing Dougherty in the dumpster would also not have eliminated the chance of his corpse being discovered before it had gotten to decompose enough to satisfy Edward's revenge. 

That revenge was against more than just Dougherty. It was a shame that Dougherty was the only monster who'd been dealt part of what he deserved. There were quite a few Ed could think of off the top of his head that also deserved his wrath and revenge. 

A few who’d left their marks on him. 

It was more satisfying than others let on: revenge. Yes, it wasn’t enough. But it was so comforting and cathartic to know that Dougherty would not get another chance to hurt another person ever again. So cathartic and comforting to know that the world was a better place without him. 

Gotham and the whole world could still be full of muggers, robbers, and murderers. But without abusers, it would certainly be better. 

Even if that meant the presence of an avenging not-dead but not-alive victim of the past. 

Edward knew his presence was unnatural, scientifically impossible. 

He could have laughed, he was finally the abomination and disgrace to the natural world that his parents had always called him. 

He was finally worthy of their disgust and hatred and horror. 

Edward shook away the thoughts, he had a job to do. 

Since he was the only forensic scientist, it would be very easy to cover up his tracks, Dr. Thompkins trusted him. She wouldn’t question his findings. Nor would Detective Bullock or Gordon. They may not have liked him much, but they trusted his work. 

Who knew getting away with murder could be so easy?

In hindsight maybe actually disposing of Dougherty’s body would have been better. 

His beloved pocket knife was in the custody of an evidence bag and Dr. Thompkins had already identified it as the murder weapon. 

And she had already asked Ed to run the tests to confirm that it was Dougherty’s blood on the knife. 

How would he be able to confirm it as the murder weapon without also revealing that there was non-Dougherty tissue and blood on the knife as well? How could he tell her the truth?

Would she suspect him? 

No. He was being irrational. 

No one had seen the gash in his neck, or the stitches that were itching and uncomfortable. 

No one had seen the bandage even. 

He was just being paranoid. 

Even if he told her there was foreign DNA it wouldn’t implicate him. 

Unless she knew it was his knife. 

But Dougherty had stolen things from him before...and threatened him...and harassed him. 

He could probably say it had just been stolen. 

But that only mattered if she knew it was his for a fact. And he’d never shown it to Dr. Thompkins or anyone else at the precinct. So, there was no reason for Dr. Thompkins or anyone else to believe it was his knife or that he was involved with Dougherty’s demise. 

He was over-reacting.

It wasn’t like his DNA was in the system, he was a civilian worker, he wasn’t issued a weapon, so he hadn’t needed to submit blood and tissue samples to the system in case. 

(This was Gotham, so Ed was not sure if that rule was to cover up for cops who had committed crimes or help implicate them).

He just needed to calm down and breathe, and ignore the fact that his muscles seemed stiff and that he still felt cold. 

Ignore the obvious hole in his lung and the rib stuck in it.

Ignore the fact that breathing didn’t really feel that real or sustaining. 

Ignore the fact he didn’t feel like he was alive. 

Ignore the fact that he wasn’t technically alive. 

Ignore that the ba-dump ba-dump of his heart was slow. And that everything, deep down at its core did not feel quite right. 

Ignore the fact that he was also not dead for who knows what reason.

Ignore the fact he had no idea how he got into this state of being and if it were permanent. 

Ignore the fact that he was terrified it would last forever. 

Ignore the fact he was terrified it wouldn’t. 

Ignore the fact that he had no idea how this not dead and not alive condition would change.

Ignore the fact he was terrified that whatever would happen next to his body and consciousness was completely out of his control. 

Ignore the fact that he _was _and should still be dead. 

Simple. 

Just push it all down and pretend that everything is alright. 

It wasn’t like many of his coworkers would pay enough attention to notice anything anyway. It wasn’t like they cared enough to pay attention. It wasn’t like they cared regardless. 

A friend was sounding really nice thing to have at about now. 

Even if he could never tell them the truth, a little comfort or compassion sounded like the best sort of gift. 

A little more than it usually did. 

After a brush with death and being dead, Edward’s deep uncontrolable want for comfort and someone to care about him was stronger than ever. 

He wanted to prove them wrong. That someone could care about him. 

That someone would care if he died. 

That someone would bother to remember something about him. 

That they even might _want _to. 

And _gosh,_ did that sound addictive as heroin. 

Not that he’d ever tried heroin. . .

He had been roofied once though.

By a strange girl in elementary school.

She said that her dad called them “happy pills” and that she thought they’d make him happier. (He had been a quiet and often melancholy boy.)

What was her name?

Marley? Muriel?

Myrtle!

It was Myrtle.

Myrtle Darcie Jenkins. 

She was the closest thing he’d ever had to a friend. And that didn’t sit well with him. 

Myrtle was. . . she made his stomach turn. Maybe it was the roofie, maybe it was how she seemed to be the only one to care about his well being. 

Maybe it was also that she seemed too friendly with him. 

Maybe it was because he’d never had any genuine affection and didn’t know how to respond.

Maybe he pushed her away because he couldn’t let himself believe that she cared. Because then he would have had to accept that his parents didn’t. 

Because then he wouldn’t have been unlovable. 

Because then his parents hated him for something he’d done.

Because then he would have to confront that there was no reason for his parents not to love him. 

And he didn’t want to think about what he did to make them hate him. 

He also might have pushed her away after she said something about collecting his hair and pieces of his skin. 

He may have been a strange child that didn’t mind dissecting roadkill, but that still made his skin crawl. (He didn’t want _more _of his body to belong to someone else.)

(He just wanted to keep some of it for himself.)

Ed made fists, digging his blunt, short nails into the skin of his palms. They were colder than they should have been. But no matter, he didn’t have time to reminisce on creepy childhood acquaintances. Or on his parents. 

Or on his childhood in general. 

He still had a job to do. And he still had to do it while seeming like nothing strange had gone on the night before and like he was still alive. 

Home was a welcome relief. No one to pry into his personal space or expect anything of him. 

He wasn’t hungry. 

Ed nearly dropped his bag. 

He hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day. 

He wasn’t parched, but his throat wasn’t dry either. 

It wasn’t wet though…

He wasn’t sleepy, tired, sure but he was sure that if he laid down he wouldn’t sleep. And he wasn’t ready to stop, to lose consciousness, because what if he didn’t wake up?

What if it forced him from his body again?

He still wasn’t ready to die. 

The night passed by, minute by minute, hour by hour. He never felt sleepy, or any more tired than he had since he’d died. 

He felt a little like the first time he’d pulled an all-nighter. 

The gross existential dread and the concrete realization that the passage of time was continuous and did not stop or slow for anyone. That time just kept marching on and the only difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow is a created concept as intangible as the lines on a calendar. 

Somehow he felt that nothing would ever be the same, even if he did continue “living” in whatever state of being he was in. 

The following day at work was maybe a little boring. Mondays weren't usually this slow. Which meant he had to focus on Dougherty, and making sure his involvement was covered up and gone, if possible. 

He didn't want to spend his dead-undead life in prison. 

He might actually be able to survive a life sentence. Or worse, brutes in Blackgate would see him as an easy target and permanently end him. He wasn't sure how much damage he could take in this state, though given how he wasn't alive… probably not much. And he definitely didn't want to test that theory. The extensive bruising, broken ribs, punctured lung, slit throat, and deep piercing cold that lived in his bones and core, it was all enough pain for him, thank you very much.

A detective decided to theatrically dump coffee on two of his files. It seemed even laryngitis and a literal inability to verbally defend himself did not provoke any sympathy out of the apes he worked with. (Though honestly, the more he made that comparison, the more he felt he was insulting the intelligence of actual primates and apes.)

It seemed that the weaker he outwardly appeared the more annoyance and bullying he faced. Which, given his childhood experience, followed the general trend. Brutes like these liked to pick on those they thought couldn't do anything about it. 

Edward used to believe that someday he would stand up to this more firmly, make sure they knew what they were doing was not to be tolerated. And look where that got him.

Dead. Undead. 

With the blood of his murderer metaphorically on his hands. 

But at least the world had one less monster in it. That, Ed did not regret. He didn't think he _could _regret it. 

So he did his best to dry the papers and clean the coffee stain so that they were still legible when he inevitably placed them in Ms. Kringle’s care. 

  


It was Thursday when he noticed it. The tips of his fingers and toes had turned a dark purplish-grey. 

Oh gosh, oh no. 

They were more numb and cold than the rest of his body. 

Looking more and more like the fingers of a corpse. 

Meaning his body was giving up its almost life. Or that whatever his state of life/death being was fading off. 

How much longer would it take for his body to necrotize? How much longer until rigor mortis? How much longer until all of him started to rot away and decompose? How much time did he have until he was truly, undeniably dead? 

How much longer until his body couldn't hold his spirit, his consciousness? 

How much longer did he have? 

The panic was mostly staved off after soaking his hands in a sink full of hot water. 

Most of the grey and purple disappeared and his hands looked a little more pink and alive. They even felt warm to the touch. (The cold was still there though, deep in the center of his bones and organs). But at least he had some warmth and another way to help keep his ruse up. 

The more this went on, the more he felt that he was cheating death. 

_(Cheater)_

Ed flinched, remembering beatings interlaced with cheating accusations, and accusations of lies and lying.

_(Cheating is for liars and fakes)_

Edward didn’t like lying, he didn’t like being accused of lying. He didn’t like that he _had to _lie, but being experimented on or chased by a mob with pitchforks were both currently higher up on the list of things he very much didn’t enjoy and would like to avoid at all costs.

But he needed, he really wanted to survive. 

Even if that meant being whatever he was now. Whatever it took to prove them wrong, whatever it took to keep living, to have a good life. 

He had to believe that he deserved nice things, that's why he had to fight for them, besides being tired of the pain and sadness most of his life had been thus far. He needed to feel some good. He needed to justify his suffering, it was all just leading him and preparing him for good times. Yes, it wasn't just cruelty for cruelty's sake. His pain had a purpose, a meaning. And he would fight tooth and nail to keep that, to keep believing it. 

After a few more deep breaths and a check to make sure his extremities were warmed and not giving away his necrotic nature, he headed off to work. 

There were no leads on Dougherty’s case. Detective Bullock didn’t seem to care much as he thought “the guy was an ass” which Ed agreed with, though Bullock still insisted on trying halfheartedly to solve it because “he was one of ours”. That part Edward did not much care for, he was a monster, he didn’t deserve to belong in a group that protected or cared about what happened to him. 

Monsters deserved to rot alone without anyone to mourn their absence. 

Detective Gordon just wanted to find the killer because “killing is bad” Edward thought it was interesting that Gordon didn’t apply that “badness” to the fact that he and his partner had killed several suspects. The possible good cop was turning out to be a righteous hypocrite. 

And Edward could say and do absolutely nothing about it. 

For once he wished more officers and detectives at the precinct were actually the good people they first appeared to be. He was sick of being baited into thinking there would be a change in the precinct. 

The day was rather glum, and that night he spent staring blankly at the neon green light outside his apartment windows. Allowing the cold to fester deeper and cool his body. 

In the green light his fingers turned purple and his lips blue. 

Staring at light didn’t hurt, the night was flares and the ghost of various lights dancing in the dark corners of his vision. 

If he wasn’t alive and he wasn’t dead, what mattered?

Edward shook himself, there was no time for nihilism, he believed in things, he wanted things. There was a reason he wasn’t quite dead, because he wasn’t ready. He still had things to accomplish, he still had a future. There had to be a future for him. 

There had to be. 

His suffering had a meaning and he had _earned _the right to a future, a bright happy future. He had earned it with blood and bruises. He had earned it with every night he cried himself to sleep while his parents argued over whose fault it was that he was born. He had earned it with every time he’d picked himself up after a beating or a long night of nightmares. 

He wasn’t going to give up now. He wasn’t going to let himself down. He wasn’t going to let down the boy who wished every night for a better life, for love, for something nice and good. 

He’d escaped too much to stop now. It wouldn’t be fair. 

He spent almost an hour under the hot spray of the shower. For the first time since he died, his reflection looked alive as it stared back at him. 

The cold was gone, his fingers and toes actually felt warm. His heartbeat was faster. 

There was hope. 

He was going to get that happy future. 

Kristen gave him a patient grimace and handed him a cheap but chic "get well soon" card. It had a teddy bear holding balloons. It was cute. 

Dr. Lee Thompkins asked him about his "laryngitis". 

He'd responded with a notepad, deciding to cut his losses and assume it would not heal. He lied to her, writing that he'd seen a doctor and that that it was severe and would probably leave permanent damage. That he might never speak again. 

She patted him on the shoulder with sympathy in her gaze and said she hoped that wasn't the case. 

It made him feel warm. 

Maybe he already had a friend at the precinct. 

Dr. Thompkins was very nice and didn't get impatient or angry with him like everyone else. He smiled and hugged her. Trying to communicate how much he appreciated her and thank her for how nice she was. 

She was always so nice to him. 

It was nice... to be treated kindly and civilly, like that. She made him feel appreciated, like a person interacting with another person. 

Not a nuisance or an object for pushing around and mocking. 

Dr. Thompkins was nice. 

On the sixth day, he didn't feel quite right. 

The cold persisted. Even with his hope and the warmth in his metaphorical heart. 

His skin was bluish and purplish up to the elbows and knees. He felt awful. 

The pain from his punctured lung, broken ribs, the awful throb of his larynx and throat where it was cut. 

He spent at least a few hours crying as he sat in a shower that should be scalding. 

But he was still cold. 

His fingers were stiff as he shut off the water. He fumbled into a towel. Then a shirt and pants. Then a sweater. 

He was still cold.

He donned a coat.

Still cold.

A thick scarf. 

Still cold. 

It was past noon. The sun, for once peaking through an overcast sky, high above. 

Edward wanted to feel it. 

Its warmth on his skin. 

He stumbled out the door and down 7 flights of stairs. 

Then fresh air.

It was nice. 

But the sunlight was moving. 

Ed ran after it, chasing the bright patch on the sidewalk and pavement, where the sunlight hit it and brought warmth. 

He turned corners and staggered quickly down streets. 

It was getting harder to breathe. 

But he needed that warmth. 

The sunlight, it would help, he was sure. It would make him feel alive again. 

He tripped on a curb. Face first into grass. The smell of it was beautiful. It was alive. 

He pulled himself up, only to fall again. 

He couldn't feel his toes or his fingers. His couldn't move his hands or feet. 

He tumbled down a small hill, coming to a halt lying on his back amongst the flowers. 

There was a pocket of blue sky above him surrounded by crushing grey. The flowers smelled so nice. They were pretty. 

They were familiar. 

Edward Nygma almost laughed. He almost cried.

It was cruel. 

He choked and sobbed and coughed. 

As his lung and throat filled with blood again. 

The tears stung his eyes. 

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. 

He could hardly make a sound. 

The little bit of blue sky was drowned and smothered into the dark grey clouds. 

He manages to grasp a buttercup in his cold, too solid purple fingers. 

And for the second time, Edward dies amongst the flowers. A sore thumb of death in a little garden of color and life. 

This time he knows, with great terror and grief, that this is the final death.

The actual end.

Lee Thompkins did not suspect that Ed Nygma would be dead when he didn't call in sick and never showed up at the precinct. 

He had laryngitis so calling would be useless. And laryngitis also usually came with a cold. 

Not with turning up in a public park dead amongst the flower garden. 

The smell was one of the worst. 

The reddish color of his body was strange. It was too early for that stage of decomposition. It was too early for the bloody foam slowly bubbling up through his nose and mouth and from under his scarf too. 

The eyes were completely liquified. 

It wasn't right to see a body like that. 

He couldn't have been dead for long enough for any of this to happen.

The man who'd found the body said he'd stumbled here just an hour ago. 

It wasn't right to see the body of a friend like this. 

Laying in the grass and flowers, lying in life, while he was very very dead. The reddish-purple bruise color of his skin contrasting highly with the greens and yellows. Contrasting with the buttercups and orange poppies. Though there were some plants that fit into the grotesque image, a bush of deep red rhododendron flowers. They matched the bloody froth that bubbled onto his face and neck, through the off white greyish scarf.

It was surely stained. 

Thank goodness nothing had started to scavenge E--the remains yet. 

The body was placed in a bag and sent to the precinct morgue for refrigeration. 

She didn't sleep much that night, but everyone involved with the case had been sent home with firm instructions not to come back until 8:30 am at the earliest. 

Captain Essen had looked as sick as Lee felt when she made the announcement, standing over Ed's body, looking everywhere but his bloated red face. 

Looking at the little yellow flower clutched in his left hand. With tired, sad eyes. 

Lee may have slept that night but it hadn’t been restful. 

How could it be with the image of a friend’s decomposing face lurking in every shadow and under your eyelids? 

Lee kept wondering to herself, in the heavy exhaustion and sorrow; how did this happen?

When she returned to the precinct a good half of the detectives were on edge (the ones who had seen his body). While none of them may have liked Edward Nygma, finding him like that, it was awful and wrong. 

His face had been an awful color, all bloated and a bit deformed, like a rotted and decomposing fruit. And like the fruit, it was accompanied by a putrid smell and an ability to churn one’s stomach. 

It wasn’t much better seeing the body-- _corpse, _it was a corpse-- in the morgue. 

The cold nullified some of the smell, and had slowed the decomp, but it also solidified that it was indeed a dead body. A cold, stiff, dead body. 

After a deep breath with her head held in her hands, Leslie suited up to start the autopsy procedure. 

His glasses had been placed into an evidence bag at the scene of death yesterday. 

She wished that she could say it looked like he was sleeping but it didn’t. It was hard to describe in words the visual difference between a living and a dead body besides the obvious complexion difference. It was more a feeling of wrongness, every corpse heald it. 

An uneasy feeling that came with the stillness and solid nature of a corpse that a sleeping body didn’t have. 

She started with the coat, it was a bit heavy for the weather, which she noted while removing it. Then came the scarf, stiff and stained a reddish-brown from the rotting blood. She held his torso up almost against hers as she unwinded it from its loose perch over his throat. 

From his throat...which was slit, a mostly horizontal slice through it. 

There were… stitches. Home sewn sutures. 

But no sign of any actual healing, which granted, shouldn’t happen given the size of the wound. It was an obvious cause of death. 

And it looked like the cut might have severed his vocal cords. Huh.

Jim showed up about five minutes after she’d finished stripping the corpse and thrown a sheet over his lower half. A new body tag was tied to his left big toe. 

Lee took a step back from the corpse. Her eyes were wide. They stayed wide. They had been wide since she'd first showed up at the flower garden yesterday. 

She was right. Decomp was all wrong. 

It _had to _be. 

Jim frowned, trying to send comfort through his shared discomfort with the situation. Maybe he could tell that this was more than just who the body was. That there was something else bothering her. 

“He’s been dead a week” Lee spoke, gesturing in the vague direction of the body. The corpse. The corpse of their co-worker. 

Ed Nygma. 

Ever smiling Ed, with his radio quiz shows and watermelon blunt-force trauma experiments. With his big squarish glasses and the spark in his eyes. (The glasses now with his personal effects and the light gone from his eyes.)

Stripped bare in anticipation of her autopsy. 

No longer a human, just a body. 

Just a corpse. 

“What do you mean?” Jim had that look in his eye, confused, afraid, uneasy. Like he’d found out his meal would likely give him food poisoning. He had every reason to be nauseous, Lee was feeling a bit sickly too.

“The blade you found with Officer Dougherty’s body?” 

“Yea?” He had a way of saying that more like a grunt than a word. 

“It had both Ed’s blood and parts of his vocal cords on it.” Jim shut his mouth, understanding. 

He definitely looked nauseous now. 

“That knife slit his throat _a week ago. _Temperature, decomp, ...it all says seven days.” She continued. Lee was not going to sleep after this. Not a wink. It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. 

“He was here Friday, he was working!” Jim was right, that was why she was so concerned. Ed had been writing, breathing, _living._ Only 48 hours ago. 

But Tom Dougherty had been dead for 7 days, an active crime scene. There was no way that a corpse could kill a man. It wasn’t possible to see a man and find his body the next day, cold and decomposed enough for a week.

And the stitches. 

It was clear the cut was too deep to be survivable. But there were rudimentary stitches going through it. With a bandage and scarf to hide them. Meaning that Ed knew his throat had been slit and he’d hidden it. 

Meaning that Ed had probably known that he was dead all along.

He was dead and yet he chose to come to work. He was dead and he came to a place where people mocked and belittled him. Where he got little appreciation for the hard work he'd done. 

He was dead and decided to go about as if life was just the same. 

With a scarf to hide the gash that had taken his life. 

“With that big scarf around his neck!” Lee shouted. 

The silence hung heavy in the room like a fog. 

All the facts pointed towards the time of death being 7 full days prior. But Ed had been working those days, he'd given smiles, and filed reports, and worked scenes. There was nothing at the place where his body was found that would have accelerated both the decomp and cooling. 

Which meant that Ed Nygma had been dead that whole week. That he'd been dead during every interaction and non-verbal conversation. 

“How?” Jim asked. Lee didn't have an answer for that. Gotham was weird, but this, this was beyond weird, beyond unnatural. It should have been impossible. Edward's death was a paradox, not possible but somehow true. 

Jim left, still in baffled silence, no doubt to relay the information to Harvey and Captain Essen. 

Her autopsy confirmed it. Internal temperature, the red color of the body, liquidation of his eyes, the blood foam that leaked from the cut on his throat his nose and mouth all confirmed that Edward Nygma had been dead for a week.

It was a difficult process. Cutting open a man she knew. A sweet, well-meaning, awkward man. 

Lee had to meticulously snip and pull out the stitches. The stitches she was sure Ed had sewn himself. There was evidence that he’d done the same a few times before, scars of stitches and cuts. 

His body was covered in old scars, very old and faded scars. Some were stitches, some just angry little lines, some little circular burns. To think she was learning so much about him only after he was gone. How much of his behavior, beliefs, and mannerisms made sense now that she'd seen the marks. 

She heard a scratchy sound, like velcro or a zipper. 

Lee faintly heard a record playing a song’s introduction, tinny and strange. The music seemed to dance from side to side, as if stepping and swaying gracefully, back and forth. The singer’s voice was smooth and flat, like something was missing. 

_The fire has gone out..._

“Miss?” a small voice asked from behind her. A child's voice. 

No one should have been in the Morgue now, especially not children, especially not a child. 

_Wet from the snow above..._

Lee turned. 

The boy was very small, his legs to skinny for his socks to stay up and his arms uncomfortably thin compared to the short sleeves of his shirt. He had an almost gaunt face. His brown eyes held a deep sadness in them. 

_But nothing will warm me more,_

“Why did she leave me? She knew he wanted to hurt me, why did she go without me?” The boy didn't look all there, in both mind and body. Something about him screamed _past, _different, wrong. That he shouldn’t be there. “Did she want him to kill me? Did she really hate me that much?” 

_ than my..._

“What's your name?” Lee knew her face was wet. Something was terribly off about the boy, and some things were awfully familiar. 

He didn't answer. 

But he flickered, too many images in too many different sizes. The apparition settled on one. A teenager, still the same boy. His features were even more familiar. Like a sick trick of deja vu. Something familiar, something from the past.

_My mother’s love, _

The record scratched again, more violently, the music playing only every few notes. An appropriate soundtrack for the horror of the situation. 

“I light,” he sniffed, “another can-an-dle, dry the tears from my fa-a-ace,” the teen choked out, his voice growing weak and eyes heavy with unshed tears.

“What’s your name?” Lee repeated, more gently this time, trying to ignore the poignant sorrow and air of tragedy that surrounded the apparition. 

“She hated me.” the teen whispers, referring to his mother, no doubt. “But I didn't think she wanted me dead.” he continued, making Lee feel even more nauseous than she had before. “ _He _did. He really tried this time,” there's no mirth in his voice when he laughs, it’s hoarse. And there are bruises on his throat, bruises that outline the shape of fingers. He has a black eye and a busted lip too. His glasses were crooked on his face, the brown eyes behind them bloodshot from crying. 

“Ed?” 

His eyes finally met hers. She could stare straight through them. 

The image flickered again. It was an exact copy of the body on her slab. The Y shaped incision down his chest and a sheet thrown over his bony hips. The cut stitches sticking out from his throat. The horrifying rotted substance that had been his eyes somehow staying in their sockets, shiny and nauseating.

It was _wrong. _

He tried to say something. Instead of words, little red flower petals fell past his purple lips, into his blue-tinted fingers. They melt. And his cold purple-red hands filled with blood. 

The apparition flickered again. 

It was the boy, the first image. 

“I survived them for so long...it's not fair!” The boy cried. His image flickering through sizes and ages, an amalgamation of his voices screaming; _screaming._ “It's not _fair! _” 

Her ears ring. Louder and louder until… 

Glass shattered. Too loudly. 

At the windows, on the mirrors.

Light-reflecting and refracting everywhere, bright and blinding and violent. 

Like a sudden death. 

The corpse is gone from the slab. The rows of body drawers are gone. The tile beneath her feet is gone. 

The cold familiar silver and grey are gone.

The morgue is gone. 

Lee stood on a semi-familiar block. Yellow lanterns shone like beacons lining the street. There was a mint green car, antique. It had a strange personalized license plate. 

Lee ran. 

She slammed into the driver side door, out of breath, startling the car’s lone occupant. 

Ed Nygma. Edward Nygma.

Alive and moving, as he should be. 

He gasped and jumped back in his seat. Like he’d perceived her as a threat. After all, she was the last person he was expecting to see. 

“Ed, don't do this, don't confront him!” The boy screaming, the scars, the bruised teenager, the body on her slab. It couldn’t happen, not again. She wouldn’t let it. He was alive now and he would stay that way. She was not going to perform another autopsy on him. 

“I-I _saw _the bruises! He _hurt _her!” He shouted, eyes red and wet already, voice full of determination Lee had never heard from him. “Why are you here? How did you-?”

“Dougherty killed you! Didn’t he? Ed?” She wanted to know for sure, but at the same time, she was sure the confirmation would just make her want to throw up.

“He- I-” he doesn’t know what to say, lost and confused. “T-that was a bad dream!” He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Dougherty _had _done it then. Which meant Ed had underestimated him in this confrontation, one about the possible and likely abuse of Kristen Kringle. 

“Ed, Dougherty will _not _go unpunished. We will figure this out, it's not your time.” Lee meant it, and Ed seemed to know that. And then he broke down. 

“I really _died, _didn't I?” his breathing was horrid, too quick and too shallow, tears slipped down his face at an alarming rate. “But… I'm _going _to die, he's going to- _oh gosh _!” His hands were in his hair, long fingers grasping, pulling, scratching. 

“Ed? Big breaths,” Lee tried to coach him, Ed nodded, “-as far as I can tell, you're still alive,” 

“ _How? _I was dead, I felt it, I felt the cold in my bones and the stiffness and _oh gosh _how was I even-how _am I _even-?” Lee didn’t have answers, and frankly, she didn’t really want to think about it. 

“I don't know,” a breath, maybe it would help to organize her thoughts, to calm them, “But Ed?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go get some coffee,” Coffee, yes, a warm place to calm down, caffeine for the headache that would no doubt come, and to flood Edward’s system with some dopamine to relieve his worry. 

After a moment he nodded, and they headed off. Leaving Kristen’s street where her porchlight glinted yellow like police tape. Dougherty would not go unpunished, but death was a steep sentence, and the way he’d gotten there last time had required another life as well. This time he’d be dealt with within the confines of the law, that way Lee wouldn’t have to perform an autopsy on a coworker. On a friend. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed reading it, I do not yet have the art that is supposed to go with this but I'll link it when I do.


End file.
